Posts Tagged ‘2011’

Content and image sliders have become very popular in recent years.The reason is that you can add very dynamic and advanced effects in your websites and blogs.Especially featuring important articles is a perfect effect for blogs.
Well,you can find many free or premium content and image sliders but today we bring together popular yet free jQuery content and image sliders from 2011.

Slicebox makes use of the 3D transforms properties and allows different kind of effects. The main idea is to create three-dimensional image slices that will rotate and reveal the next image as another side of the 3d object.

It’s a simple circular content carousel.The idea is to have some content boxes that we can slide infinitely (circular). When clicking on the “more” link, the respective item moves to the left and a content area will slide out.

The Easing Slider is an image slider plugin for WordPress which uses the jQuery Easing plugin.The Easing Slider comes with various options that allow you to choose different sources to get the images from and also multiple styling options so that you”ll never have to edit any files directly & with ease. Create your own unique elegant slider

SlideDeck was designed to replace the web’s current model of text heavy services pages, unclear product tours and confusing process diagrams with a fun, quick and beautiful way to interact with websites.

TheThe Image Slider is a WordPress plug-in that provides you with one of the most powerful, the most creative and the most versatile of image sliders built using jQuery. This sleek Image Slider plug-in is great for all those who are looking for a quick and easy way to get their portfolio online.

The carousel features realistic perspective. Many 3d carousels only apply perspective scaling to the size of the images, not their positions. This results in disproportionate gaps appearing between items as they shrink in the distance which looks odd.

The Slidorion displays beautiful images along with a variable length description. With slides linked to each tab, and accompanied by a large array of effects, the Slidorion is a great alternative to the traditional jQuery slider.

We continue to showcase the best of freebies of 2011 in design industry.This year,many free fonts have been released and some of them really deserve to be in the best of list.Below fonts are all free for personal use,however please check for the commercial usage rights.

Haymaker

Wonderful

We are again in the last month of a year and we all saw many many detailed photoshop tutorials in 2011.I thought it was the right time for a great roundup of best photoshop tutorials like we did every year.We have selected really good tutorials which we think all of them will teach you something new.Here is the roundup best photoshop tutorials from 2011.

Best Photoshop Tutorials of 2011

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Create Old Decorated Metal Text Effect

This tutorial explains how to use Layer Styles to create a metal text effect, and then add a very nice decoration texture using only a couple of filters, without the need for brushes or texture images.Tutorial Source

Create a Futuristic Bicycle Icon

In this tutorial artist will create a futuristic bicycle icon from scratch using some basic Photoshop tools.Tutorial Source

Create a Leatherback Book Icon in Photoshop

This tutorial will show you how to draw a book and apply textures and layer styles.Tutorial Source

Create an Evil 3D Monkey Icon

In this tutorial, artist will create create a detailed 3D monkey icon using a photo of a toy monkey as a reference.Tutorial Source

Draw a Realistic Steam Iron in Photoshop

This Photoshop tutorial will show you how to create a realistic Steam Iron from scratch. You’ll learn how to create realistic shadows & highlights on plastic and metal.Tutorial Source

Create a Clean iPad Interface

In this tutorial, artist will demonstrate how to create a clean iPad interface using Photoshop’s powerful toolbox.Tutorial Source

Unusual Christmas Card

In this tutorial,you will learn how to create christmas card.Tutorial Source

Create a Powerful Human Disintegration Effect

In this tutorial artist will create a powerful, and emotional human disintegration effect in Photoshop.Tutorial Source

Egg Planet

In this tutorial,you will learn how to create a fantastic globe photo manipulation.Tutorial Source

Create Convincing Text-Shaped Buildings

In this tutorial artist will learn how to create building-shaped typography in Photoshop using photos that you have taken yourself.Tutorial Source

Create an Amazing Abstract Heart Surreal

In this surreal Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn the entire workflow from start to finish of creating an incredible surreal abstract artworkTutorial Source

Create a Cutout Photograph in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will demonstrate how to create a cutout photo using simple selections and advanced transformations.Tutorial Source

Create 3 Retro MP3 Players in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will demonstrate how to create 3 retro MP3 players in Photoshop. Each design will include a different type of media, a CD, record, and tape.Tutorial Source

Create a Detailed Vintage TV from Scratch

In this tutorial, artist will show you how to create a detailed vintage TV from scratch using Photoshop’s vector editing capabilities.Tutorial Source

Create a Stitched Text Effect for an iPad Wallpaper

In this tutorial artist will show you how to create a custom stitched text effect for an iPad Wallpaper.Tutorial Source

Captain America Shield in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will show you how to create the Captain America shield using Photoshop. The whole process is quite simple and won’t take you more than 45 minutes.Tutorial Source

Create a Detailed User Interface for an iPad Application

Artist will design this application using a retina display resolution and will make use of Photoshop’s shape layers and layer styles.Tutorial Source

Create a Floating Over-Grown “Tree House”

In this tutorial artist will combine several stock images to create a floating over-grown tree house in Photoshop.Tutorial Source

How to Create Cityscape Concept Art

In this tutorial, artist will teach you how to easily create a successful piece of cityscape concept art.Tutorial Source

Create a Surreal Out of Bounds Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial artist will combine several images of water, animals, and people to create a surreal out of bounds photo manipulation in Photoshop.Tutorial Source

Create Chocolate Bar Text Effect

This tutorial explains how to create a simple pattern, then how to use it along with a couple of layer styles to make a chocolate bar like text effect.Tutorial Source

Create a Detailed Camera Icon in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will demonstrate how to create a detailed Fuji X100 camera icon in Photoshop.Tutorial Source

How to Create a Cute Gooey Blob from Scratch

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a funny 3d character in Photoshop from scratch by using few most basic steps and techniques like lights, shadow, brushes, blur.Tutorial Source

How to Create Eroded Metal Text With Photoshop

In this tutorial artist show you how to create an eroded metal text effect.Tutorial Source

Create a Nature Text Effect Poster in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to make a poster inspired by WWF creative posters.Tutorial Source

Create a Still-Life Lamp, Nightstand, and Picture Frame

In this tutorial, artist will create the inside of a home from scratch using only Photoshop.Tutorial Source

Christmas Night

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a magic scene.Tutorial Source

Create an Open Book Icon In Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will demonstrate how to create an open book icon in Photoshop.Tutorial Source

Create a Paint Brush in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will demonstrate how to create a realistic-looking paint brush using layer styles, clipping masks, and the not-so-commonly-used blend if sliders.Tutorial Source

Create a Dark and Mysterious Fantasy Portrait

In this tutorial we will combine several stock images, adjust color, use retouching techiniques as well as make and control custom brushes to create a dark and mysterious blue portrait.Tutorial Source

How to Apply Textures to Uneven Surfaces

Fairy Christmas Night-Magic Wall Calendar

In this tutorial artist will show you how to create magic wall calendar.Tutorial Source

Create a Flowerpot From Scratch in Photoshop

In this tutorial, artist will show you how to create a flowerpot from scratch using several techniques in Photoshop.Tutorial Source

How to Create a Delicious Green Apple Illustration

In this tutorial, artist will be showing you how to draw a shiny green apple.Tutorial Source

Medieval Metal Text Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial artist will show you how to create a nice metal text effect using just layer styles. It’s a simple tutorial and won’t take you more than 30 minutes to go through the step by step.Tutorial Source

Create an Ice Cream Type Treatment

In this tutorial,artist will show you how to realize an awesome text effect using ice cream.Tutorial Source

Create a Wacom Product Advertisement

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a Wacom tablet product advertisement. You’ll see how to take a product image and create a theme for an advertisement.Tutorial Source

Create a Surreal Apocalypse Photomanipulation

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a surreal photomanipulation, and then add a touch of apocalyptic destruction to it.Tutorial Source

Create an Incredible Story Coming Alive Fantasy

In this fantasy photomanipulation tutorial, you’ll learn how to start with just a few stock images and quickly build up an incredible story-based artwork.Tutorial Source

Create a Scene with Popup Photos in Photoshop

In this tutorial,you will learn how to transform some regular pictures into cool 3D photos and integrate them in a veridical scene.Tutorial Source

“Piece of the Artic” Pie Chart Photo Manipulation

This tutorial will utilize Photoshop 3D features, layer masking, and a lot of selections.Tutorial Source

Make a Photorealistic Electric Guitar

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a realistic electric guitar using only Photoshop.Tutorial Source

Message in a Bottle

In this tutorial,you will learn how to create a message in a bottle flowing on waves.Tutorial Source

How to Create Honey Leaking Effect on the Delicious Pancake

In this tutorial,artist will teach you how to create honey leaking effect very detailed.Tutorial Source

Extremely Glossy and Shiny Text Effect

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’re going to see how to create extremely glossy and shiny text effect with glitter texture. We will use simple techniques blending and layer style effects.Tutorial Source

Golden Foil Gift Box from Scratch

In this tutorial,you will learn how to create shiny gift box from scratch.You will find a lot of screen shots in this tutorial, but process of creation is not very difficult.Tutorial Source

Design a Super Slick Club Poster

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a club poster.Tutorial Source

Design a Futuristic Abstract Portrait

This tutorial will walk you through the steps of how to create your very own futuristic artistic portrait.Tutorial Source

Create an Elegant Greeting Card with Vintage Christmas Baubles

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how a greeting card with vintage Christmas baubles can be designed in Adobe Photoshop CS5. You will learn, how to create vintage background, Christmas baubles, draw snowflakes, customize brushes etc.Tutorial Source

Design a Detailed Audio Receiver Icon

In this tutorial Nikola will show you how to create a detailed audio receiver icon using Photoshop’s vector editing capabilities.Tutorial Source

Remember, remember, the fifth of…

Oh wait, wrong date. Anyway. End of the month, still digesting turkey, amazing stuff piling up in the Flickr group, need to showcase it, you know! Also, you should see and/or read more about some of the works in there soon!

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/> New WordPress themes are released constantly, some free, some premium. And some better than others. Free themes, especially, tend to have a greater disparity in quality from one another, with some being just as great as the best premium themes, and others being poorly designed or poorly coded (or both). Below, we’ve collected more than sixty of the best themes released since late summer. Roughly half are premium themes, ranging in price from to , with the other half being free. If you think there are other themes out there released during the same time period that should have been included, let us know in the comments!

Desktopography is a wallpaper exhibition that is released once a year. Every year the exhibition is more striking with artists from all over the globe creating amazing pieces of art to be displayed on your desktop. This year is no different, the exhibition is completely amazing!

Here are just a fews pieces of the 2011 exhibition, to view the entire collection and download some wallpapers go to Desktopography.

Humanitys last hope

By Adam Spizak

Garden

By Lionel Charpentier

Silence

By Hassan Loukal

Antonio Bay

By Ralf | Falcon White

Desktopography 11

By José Paulo

Heavens nectar

By Mike Harrison

The Siphon

By Finnian MacManus

Ecotype

By Marcin Stryczek

About the author

Hi there! I’m Paulo Canabarro, 26 year old web designer – paulocanabarro.com I’m from Brazil currently living and working out of Providence RI, USA. I’m truly passionate about design of all kinds, finding and sharing inspiration here has become part of my life. If you like to know more about me or get in touch visit my website paulocanabarro.com For some daily awesomeness make sure to Follow me on twitter!

, and

Sponsored Links:

October is already gone!

Phew, October is already gone and I haven’t released a Go Media Flickr Pool showcase yet! This should fix it, but man, October was busy. Work, work, family time and more work. Anyway. If you want to know more about what we worked on, part of it is there…

I’m also happy to announce that the pool has reached 1,940 members and includes above 13280 pieces at the time of writing!

Fall is here…

It’s grey, cold and gloomy out there. Time to grab your laptop, a cup of tea and get under a blanket to watch some inspiration.

The showcase

Once again, this month’s art harvest is awesome. I’m trying to select pieces that are as diverse as possible, to showcase the wide gamut of work that’s submitted. If you didn’t make it, try again! It will pay off, I promise.

Also, I’m happy to announce that the group broke the 1900 member barrier.

Finally, if you like what you see, please follow the links to Flickr, and click “fav.” It’ll make the life of each designers happier.

Hi, I’m Franz — a London-based freelance graphic designer and founder of the design blog Fudgegraphics. As a personal project, I create a new desktop wallpaper each month featuring the current calendar month. It’s a pleasure to share some insights into the creation of ”Rise – June 2011 Calendar Wallpaper”.

Something that I want to make clear from the start is that this is not a step-by-step tutorial, but rather a case study showcasing some of the techniques used. It wasn’t easy writing this article, mostly because all of my personal designs are what I like to call “happy accidents”. Hopefully you’ll learn some new tricks and techniques in Photoshop. Most of all, I hope to inspire you to experiment with your own ideas.

I’ve used some of my personal photographs to create the design which is why I won’t be able to make them available. The first two photographs were taken at PS1 in New York when I visited in 2009. Browsing through my photo library I thought that these images would make a great starting point to experiment with different blending modes and see what I can come up. So, let’s get started.

Part 1: The Base Photos

We’ll start with the yellow corridor photo. Open it in Photoshop and duplicate the layer by pressing Cmd (Ctrl) + J. If you take anything from this article, let it be this keyboard shortcut. It’s such a timesaver! Next, we import the green corridor photo. The idea was to blend the two photos together, in order to do so I duplicated the layers and changed the blending modes as well as opacities. In the screenshot below you can see the actual layer order with their respective values. Soft Light, Screen & Multiply are my go-to blending modes and this design was no different. This stage of the process is very experimental and you should try out which combinations of blending modes and opacities work for you.

Not entirely happy with the overall feel of the design, I decided to add one more photo to the mix. This one was taken in Central Park during the same trip to NY. A simple Soft Light blending mode at 20% was all it needed to give it some more organic randomness.

That’s more like it. Now select the whole canvas using Cmd (Ctrl) + A and hit Cmd (Ctrl) + J. This handy shortcut combo copies a merged version of the visible design and pastes it into a new layer. Using a black & white adjustment layer I created a desaturated version of the design on a new layer. Move the colour layer on top and drop it’s opacity to about 50%. This wraps up the first part.

Part 2: Desktop Wallpaper Design

Next we create a new document at 2560×1440 (this is the largest the wallpaper will be and allows us to crop it down to smaller screen resolutions). As a seasoned wallpaper designer I have a Photoshop template file at hand with all the guides for different resolutions in place. This is available to download at the end.

We’ll start with a blurry blue/green background. There’s many ways to achieve this effect, I opted to use a yellow scenery photograph as the base file. Working with photos always add a more realistic randomness to your design. The screenshot below shows how a Gaussian Blur combined with a Hue Adjustment Layer (set to colorize) turns a landscape photograph into a nice background. Note that the photo and adjustment layer are linked, but not merged into one layer. This allows for subtle colour tweaks as we built up the layers. It’s always best to work in the least destructive way so that you can go back and easily make changes.

The image below shows the colour that I liked the most.

Part 3: Combine the files

It’s time to import the previous image of the “corridors mashup” as I like to call it. The easiest way to do this is to select all with Cmd (Ctrl) + A and copy (merged) using Cmd (Ctrl) + Shift + C. In the wallpaper file hit Cmd (Ctrl) + V to paste it into a new layer. Convert the new layer into a smart layer which ensures that we never lose any detail! Align the layer so that you can see the bottom half and change its blending mode to Soft Light at 50%. Duplicate. Now move the top half into frame. Duplicate once again and this time use the Free Transform tool (Cmd/Ctrl + T) to scale the image up.

Another technique I use is to invert the image using and adjustment layer combined with a mid-opacity Soft Light blending mode. As said before, this is all very much experimental and each photo will require different opacity levels and blending modes. Don’t be afraid to overdo some of the effects, you can always go back and reduce the opacity of layers as you build up.

Below you can see a breakdown of the layers order. Once I had the overall feel I was going for I inspected each layer individually, changing the opacity and trying out different blending modes. That’s a thing I always do, just making sure that I got the best possible result. Sometimes a 5% opacity change makes a huge difference.

It’s always a good idea to keep your Photoshop file tidy(ish) as you work. So take all your current layers and put them in a group called “Background”.

Part 4: Adding Shapes

Next up we’ll add some squares to the design. Use the shape tool draw a black rectangle. Set the layer’s opacity to 20%. Duplicate and scale down. Repeat until you have 4 squares. Select these layers and align them at the bottom right. That’s your upper left quadrant. Group the layers and duplicate. Rotate by 90 degrees. Use the move tool (V) to place this in the top right quadrant. Holding Shift while moving will ensure that you only change the horizontal position, not the vertical one. Repeat these steps until you have the four quadrants. Go back into your layers and hide (don’t delete) some of the squares. The image below shows my selection.

Put all the different quadrants layers into a new group and set its blending mode to Soft Light at about 60%. This will add some more contrast to the centre of the design.

I made a few more tweaks to the background such as reducing the opacity of a few layers. The key, as always, is to experiment. I can’t stress this enough. The resulting background design is shown below.

Part 5: Mountain Tops

While I was happy with the overall feel of the design, there was still something missing. A quick search on a stock photography site yielded a nice photo of a mountain top. In order to keep with the symmetric theme of the design I took the mountain top photo, duplicated it and flipped it along the vertical axis. Using a Hue/Saturation as well as Curves Adjustment layer the background (sky) was brightened until it was white. Now all that was left to do was to set the blending mode to Multiply to knock out the white parts and blend the rest of the mountain nicely into the background.

The last graphical element to be added are the circles. Just like with the squares, these are simple shape layers with different colours and set to different blending modes at a low opacity.

With the design pretty much done I realised that the squares were a bit too prominent for my taste. That’s an easy fix though. Simply select the squares layer group and reduce its opacity. The preview below shows a few extra layers which I won’t go into. These are very subtle additions and don’t use any new techniques.

Final Wallpaper:

There you have it. This is the final wallpaper design featuring the June 2011 calendar. It’s available without the calendar in most common screen resolutions (including for the iPhone and iPad). If you like it you can download it here.

I really hope that you enjoyed this case study and maybe learned a new trick or two. Feel free to ask questions in the comments. I’ll check back often and will do my best to answer them.

Bonus: Wallpaper Photoshop Source File

If you’ve been inspired by this case study and want to design your own desktop wallpaper then I got a present for you. Exclusively on GoMediaZine you can download the psd file with all the guides for different screen sizes. The following resolutions are included: 2560×1440, 1920×1200 (suitable for 1440×900), 1600×1200, 1280×1024, iPad and iPhone 4 (retina display).

A Kolavia Tupolev TU-154B2, registration RA-85588 performing flight 7K-348 from Surgut to Moscow Domodedovo (Russia) with 116 passengers, 8 crew and 10 off duty crew, was preparing for takeoff from Surgut and had just been pushed back when a fire broke out. the crew could not extinguish the fire which spread into the fuselage. the airplane was evacuated. three passengers were killed, 43 people received injuries with 39 of them being hospitalized, the others remained uninjured. the aircraft burned down completely.the Russian Health Ministry reported on Jan 1st one person was killed and 34 people were hospitalized, 4 of them being in critical condition.Russia’s MAK (Accident Investigation Committee) confirmed RA-85588 suffered an accident at Surgut killing one passenger, the aircraft burned down. the MAK have initiated an investigation. on Jan 2nd the MAK added, that both flight data recorders have been recovered, analysis has begun. on Jan 3rd the MAK said, that all three engines had been started when the fire broke out. the quality of recordings is good, the work at the accident site is hampered by low temperatures however. on Jan 4th the MAK reported, that the fire broke out in the rear of the aircraft between frames 62 and 65, neither engines nor the APU were the source of the fire.Russia’s Rosaviatsia (Civil Aviation Authority) said, that the engine caught fire when the airplane was preparing for takeoff. fire fighters were able to extinguish the fire within 20 minutes but not before the airpane completely burned down.Russia’s Rostransnadzor (Ministry of Transport) said on Jan 1st, the airplane had just been pushed back, the engines were being started when ground staff ordered an emergency shut down of the engines due to a fire. the engines were shut down, the airplane de-powered and an evacuation was initiated. the fire reached the inside of the passenger cabin. Emergency services were able to extinguish the fire about 42 minutes after the fire broke out. the airplane was destroyed. 3 people were killed, 39 people were injured. the Ministry have initiated an investigation in cooperation with the Russian prosecution office. on Jan 2nd the Ministry added, that after the assessment of risk vs economics involving the continued operation of the 15 TU-154B types remaining in service in Russia the Ministry have proposed to suspend operation of TU-154B aircraft until the factors leading to the accident have been determined.the airline reported in a press release dated Jan 2nd, that 43 people including 8 crew members were hospitalized with burns of first and second degree as well as injuries from smoke inhalation. three persons have not been located so far. the airplane carrying 116 passengers, 8 crew and 10 off duty crew was taxiing out for departure at the time and burned completely down.Local Authorities in Surgut confirmed one fatality on Jan 2nd and reported two passengers (a father and son) missing. on Jan 6th Authorities confirmed, that the remains of three passengers have been recovered.One of the pilots reported, that they had started the engines and were just connecting the generators when they received the command to shut down. Passengers started to shout “fire”, almost instantly smoke came through all openings into the cockpit.Passengers reported, that people in the last seat row started to shout fire, then smoke quickly entered the cabin followed by actual fire that rapidly spread through the cabin along the ceiling.an airport surveillance video shows no fire or smoke visible outside the aircraft when all left hand emergency exits flew open and passengers emerged onto the wing, slided down the front and aft door where the chutes had deployed and jumped down from the L2 door where the side had not deployed (right side of aircraft not visible).Ground video of the burning aircraft (Video: AlfaZlo):youtube.com/watch?v=2kQSQlb7MuAThe burnt down aircraft: